They are not natural features. Each one, roughly nine metres long and six metres wide, was carefully levelled by hand to create a working surface for the production of charcoal, an industry that once shaped the woodlands of Wicklow far more profoundly than most visitors realise. Charcoal platforms of this kind, sometimes called pitsteads or hearths, were built to allow colliers to stack and slowly burn timber under a covering of turf and earth, a controlled smoulder that drove off moisture and volatile gases and left behind the dense carbon fuel demanded by iron smelters and smiths.

Over seventy such platforms have been recorded in this area, distributed at irregular intervals along the northern and southern sides of the Upper Lake and spreading westward and south-westward towards the ancient monastic site at Reefert Church. The concentration is striking. Ua Riain noted the platforms as early as 1940, and a later account by Healy in 1972 recorded around forty examples of the same form in the same vicinity. Together, the references paint a picture of sustained, organised industrial activity in a landscape more commonly associated with early Christian monasticism and romantic scenery. The proximity to Reefert Church is a quiet puzzle; whether the two histories overlapped in any meaningful way, or whether the charcoal workings belong to an entirely different period, the notes do not say.